


To Mend a Broken Heart

by nevermind_sanity



Series: Sanity's Adventures through Destiny 2 [6]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Jeanie won't join up on that until forsaken, This is in the universe but doesn't really deal with what's going on in the city, happening along side events and The Power of Five
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 17:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16937751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevermind_sanity/pseuds/nevermind_sanity
Summary: After losing her older sister 20-21 years ago, Jeanie became a vigilante, wandering the earth place to place, helpind the few settlements left on it and uncovering Golden Age or older secrets. A chance meeting with Rosa, a Ghost who lost her Guardian in the Red War, sets in motion events that help to unravel Jeanie's misconceptions about Guardians and eventually find the truth to Gale's fate.Mostly a series of adventures building up to Jeanie's appearance in Forsaken.





	To Mend a Broken Heart

     The day Gale Glassford died was the worst day of Jeanie’s life.

     Even so many years later, the memory was pricking at the back of her mind. Her sister’s face had been blurred over time, the memory getting fuzzier, but there were nights where she thought it was happening all over again, except she got a close up look at how she was gutted by one of those Fallen spears. There was blood everywhere, pooling over the broken cement, all over Jeanie’s clothes as she helplessly held the corpse in her arms...

     That wasn’t how it happened, but she did watch the moment her sister was murdered from the air.

     Often when she had that memory come back to haunt her, she would wake with a jolt, nearly hitting her head off of the window of the ship she had been using for far too long. That ship was named the Ophelia and everything inside it was everything she owned. In that list was what little money she had, her spear, the clothes on her back, a small sewing kit, and what little food and water she could carry. The Ophelia was a one person ship, meant for just getting place to place, not as a home. Jeanie however had no home to go to. The Reef was certainly not her home. The villages she visited were not home. The City was most certainly not her home. The Ophelia was the closest thing she had to home.

     She had changed since that death. When she had been a nurse she been a little chubby, but still strong enough to help patients get up. She had kept her hair neat and short, not wanting to put it up in a bun constantly like her sister. She would’ve never imagined living a vigilante life style like this. She would’ve never imagined picking up a weapon and looking something dead in the eyes as she tore through its flesh and took its life.

     Yet here she was. She was much more muscular now, with long wild hair tied back. She could dead lift a fully grown man if she wanted to. She didn’t just save lives anymore, she took them, crushed them beneath her heel when she wanted to. As far as Jeanie was concerned, the day she took up this mantel was the day the rest of her innocent old self died. This woman was far different from the one who cowered behind her elder sister.

      The organization skills she had were thrown out the window as well. She had little need of them, and the tiny ship suffered for it. It was perhaps cleaned thoroughly once a year, and until then it was usually a disorganized cockpit where she slept and traveled around in. She had many a mechanic wonder how she was able to stand the filth inside, but the woman hardly noticed it after a while.

     “Ophelia, how long was I out?” she grumbled as she rubbed her eyes.

     The dashboard screen lit up with a blue light. A timer was frozen now, “You have been asleep for 3 hours, 34 minutes, and 21 seconds.” The voice chirped. The voice of Ophelia, some AI or other, was really the only companion she had these long years. She wasn’t really a true AI, as far as Jeanie could tell, but it was better than screaming at a wall.

     “May I suggest more rest Jeanie?” Ophelia asked.

     “No, why do you keep asking?” Jeanie mumbled as she pulled the back of the seat to an upright sitting position, reaching to her lower back and cracking it to loosen it up. Ever after all of these years, her muscles whined at the fact she slept in a pilot’s chair or on the ground.

     “My subroutines indicate that the normal sleep time for adult human beings is 8 hours or above! I will always suggest more sleep is the standard is not met!”

     “We’ve been together for how many years and you still ask me this?”

     “Calculating...”

     “No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”

     “Understood.”

     As if she needed another reminder of how long she had been in this line of work. She opened up the hatch, grabbing her spear from the back, and climbed out of the ship. Her boots made a squishing sound as they landed on the mud.  It would be one of the last times she could park her ship here until the ground froze over again. The swamp here was a great place to hide her ship from her enemies, but only when the ground wasn’t ready to swallow the ship whole. She still did her daily check around the ship, but the Fallen didn’t generally like coming out here.

     “Ophelia, any distress calls?” Jeanie asked as she started looking around.

     “Currently, none!”

     “Thank the Traveler for that. Those Cabal really messed things up.”

     She had been guiding people during the Red War. Survivors that needed a place to go were directed to previous places she had occupied, or towards a signal from some place called The Farm. She lost count of how many Cabal she had fought her way through to keep a settlement safe when they tried to take it over for a base. Unlike Fallen, they could take a hit or two. If she was going in for a kill, she better not miss a vital part of the body. She lost track of the patch ups she needed over the course of the Red War. Once the city was retaken it wasn’t so bad, she was thankful things were calming down.

     “Anything on the list I put down and now forgetting?”

     “Processing... no notes found!”

     “So find a place and solve its problems sort of day then.” Jeanie sighed. She looked out to waters of the wetland that created a calm fog. The dead grasses and sedges were peeking out from under the last of the snow mounds. There was a quiet ambient sound here, a stilled form of life that breathed even when the frigid cold had a hold on it. Jeanie quietly raised a hand up, the light silently flowing through her skin, and found herself trying to grasp something in the mist. She didn’t know what she was trying to grab onto, she didn’t know all the other times she found herself reaching for something, but she always felt something on the tips of her fingers, something she lacked in her life, something calling her but she couldn’t quite grab it.

     She sighed, lowering her arm and instead climbing back into her ship. She tucked her spear back behind her seat, closing the hatch and leaning back with a sigh, “System check.”

     “Scanning... all systems normal! Ophelia-57 is ready to fly.”

     “Let’s head to the Old North American continent on the Pacific side. I feel like searching old city ruins.”

     “Understood!”

     The Ophelia roared to life and started to lift off of the ground all on her own. The times Jeanie had done this were far too many for her to care to remember. It was a job that was always different every time, but after so many years it began to run dry and aimless. She did this to protect the people outside of the city’s reach. She did this to be there when no one else would be. Guardians only followed the Vanguard’s orders. The Sunbreakers charged people money to help. There were other Risen out here, but not the kind that the Guardians were. She was the rogue. She was the person who would do what others would not for the people forgotten by the larger population.

     It was so easy to forget that after so long on her own. Sure they thanked her, but she hadn’t really made any friends, always drifting with the winds, never staying in one place for too long. At times like these, where she hid out of sight to rest, the days seemed to blend together in a muddle. Aimlessly wandering between her battles she found no joy, no answers to her unasked questions, just a sense of time going by her, and wondering what could’ve been.

     She was tempted to sleep the trip off. She already found a sense of exhaustion coming over her, even though she just slept not that long ago. The only problem was she could feel her back flaring up in pain. Sometimes the pain told her to sleep, other times it kept her awake. She was used to it, as old injuries and sleeping habits were slowly destroying her body. She knew better than to ignore pain like this, she was a nurse once, but she couldn’t bring herself to care anymore. She lightly closed her eyes and let herself drift off into a light sleep, trying as best as she could to catch up on it. She could feel the back ache thud away, and sighed a little.

     “Jeanie?”

     The Awoken cracked an eye open when the AI spoke up.

     “Do you wish to speak what’s on your mind?”

     “In the last decade or so when have I ever wanted to talk about my feelings?” she asked with a raised brow.

     “I will continue to ask until you do. It has been 19 years and you have not slept properly once on my record.”

      Jeanie groaned hearing that number, “I told you not to remind me.”

      “I heard Awoken live for hundreds, if not thousands of years. I would’ve thought this wouldn’t feel so long.”

      Jeanie’s eyes cast downward, “Let me tell you, it’s been the longest 19 years of my worthless life.”

      “Sensing self depreciation. Activating...”

      “I will smash your motherboard if you try that cat shit again, it doesn’t work.”

      Ophelia went silent after that and Jeanie sighed. She reached down to rub her back to ease the pain a little more. Leaning back and closing her eyes once more she tried to drift back to sleep. Long rides like these were always boring when you only had an AI to yell at.  For a moment, she did drift out of consciousness into a light seemingly dreamless sleep. It didn’t feel like one though when Ophelia suddenly chirped and woke her up again.

     “Emergency distress signal found!” Ophelia chimed as alarms went off. Jeanie woke with a jolt through her, nearly hitting her head off of the roof again.

     “Well what are you waiting for? Play it!” Jeanie shouted as she reached to her back to try and crack it.

     “There is no message, simply an S.O.S!  Plotting a course!”

     Jeanie could feel the ship shift direction. She gave her lower back one hard punch and felt some relief when it undid the knot that was in it. She then reached back for the spear behind her. It was modified Fallen Spear with blades at both ends of the stick. While it no longer produced electricity, it was still effective in its own right, especially as the wielder had spent a long time getting the movements down.

     “This is gonna be one of those days, I can just tell.” She mumbled.

     The Ophelia slowed down as it came closer to the ground before landing on what was once an old road. The farmer fields around it had long since been overgrown, but the asphalt had taken longer to consume. The grass and small flowers extended off into the rolling hills, marking where the Golden Age people once traveled, now being returned to nature. The hatch opened and Jeaine vaulted out over the side, the wildflowers shedding its petals as she landed on them.

     “How far is it Ophelia?” Jeanie asked.

     “Approximately 50 meters starboard side.”

     Jeanie gave a nod and started to run into the brush on the right side of the ship. As she went, she made little notches into the tree with her spear to mark her way back. Once she got closer, she could hear a familiar sound of Fallen clicking and shouting. Ducking behind an old elderberry bush, Jeanie peered out to see a small group of Fallen surrounding what Jeanie thought was a flower for a moment, but then realized it was a Ghost. Its shell looked far more like 8 petals, with four of them having a black band, and the rest of it was a beautiful deep red. It looked quite panicked as the Fallen kept trying to swipe at it. Fallen usually didn’t attack Ghosts, but there were some who were far more bitter than others.

     “Eek!” the ghost squeaked as she dodged two more strikes. At this point, Jeanie was sure they were just toying with the poor thing now. They could’ve easily shot her by now or smashed her into the ground, especially since this was a small clearing. They were purposely missing.

     Jeanie wasn’t a fan of ghosts either, but it wasn’t right to let them keep torturing her.

     She quietly stepped to get a clearer line of sight. They hadn’t seemed to notice her yet thankfully. She switched the hand holding the spear as her left reached down and pulled out a knife. Giving it a bit of a twirl, Jeanie waited for a moment before one head was right in her line of sight. The knife left her hand, and before anyone could really react, the Dreg was on the ground, dead, with the hilt of the knife sticking out of it.

     The Awoken was fast to dash out of the bushes. She only would have a few precious moments to act before they could pick up a weapon and fight back. There were four in total surrounding the ghost, one was already down. Gripping her spear in both hands she swung up and across, slicing open the closest one to her across its chest. The next moment she could hear the ghost shrieking and flying to hide behind her. It made it easier she supposed to take out the last two who were running towards her.

     “Alright...” Jeanie pursed her lips, “Cause two against one is fair.”

     At least she was used to these sorts of fights. As they drew close she stuck the weapon into the ground and used it to vault over both of them. Once she hit the ground she swung and managed to slice one’s back, but the other just managed to dodge the swing. While the one she struck hit the ground, the other ran up, spear over its head, trying to bring it down in a stab. She raised her weapon up to block, sliding the weapon over her head, and gave it a firm kick to the abdomen. The Dreg stumbled back, and before it could take another swing, Jeanie had already stabbed through it. She put her foot firmly on its chest and pulled the weapon out as the Dreg fell lifeless before. The other one was just getting back on its feet, but he would also find a weapon stabbed straight through him before he could even take a swing at her.

      The ghost looked at her in awe as she walked over and took her knife out of the dreg. Curiously the ghost floated over to Jeanie, tilting her shell slightly.

     “Excuse me miss.” She chirped, “I... well first, thank you for the rescue. I couldn’t seem to get away.”

      Jeanie said nothing to that as she put down her spear and took a cloth out of her pocket to wipe down the blade of the knife with.

     “Are you a... You’re not a Guardian, are you?”

     “Nope.” Jeanie replied as she sheathed the knife, “Hate to disappoint.”

     “No! That’s not disappointing at all! In fact, that makes that all more impressive!” The Ghost floated a little closer as Jeanie picked up her spear and started to clean both blades.

     “Eh, not really. Dregs aren’t hard to fight. The ones with guns are bastards, but hey, what else is new.”

     “I have to ask, what are you doing out here?” The Ghost floated a little closer. Jeanie stopped what she was doing and pushed her away gently.

     “What’s it matter to you? I saved your ass didn’t I? What else do you want?”

     “I was just asking!”

     “Well go be curious back in that happy little city of yours, ‘k? You have a unique shell, which means you have a Guardian, right? Go hang out with them.”

     Jeanie noticed how the shell seemed to droop and felt a twinge of guilt.

     “Had... I uh... had a Guardian.”

     Jeanie frowned a little as she put the cloth back in her pocket and stuck her spear into the ground, “Had? I assume those Cabal bastards had something to do with it. Why are you out here then?” Jeanie folded her arms a little.

     “Why should I answer you when you won’t answer me?”

      Jeanie rolled her eyes, “You’re assuming I care enough to want to know.”

     “If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t have asked.” The ghost got up a little closer to her again as she spoke. If she had a mouth, Jeanie was sure she wouldn’t been grinning ear to ear as she made a small frustrated sound at being called out. “Look, why don’t you at least tell me your name?”

     Jeanie sighed a little, “...Jeanie. Jeanie Glassford.”

     “See? Was that so hard? I’m Rosa.”

     “Rosa? I didn’t even know you guys had names.”

     “Some go by Ghost, but others like me have a name. You haven’t met many ghosts I assume?”

     Jeanie shrugged, “I usually leave em well enough alone. They’re just doing their job or looking for a Guardian to raise out of the ground and try to do some good. Can’t say I’m too fond of that but, it’s not like you guys mean bad.”

     “Why aren’t you too fond of that?” Rosa tilted her shell.

     “Something isn’t quite right with that. You bring someone back to life after they’ve been dead and gone for so long? When you’re dead, that’s it. You don’t have to worry about anything anymore. You can be at peace, right? Not to mention most of them don’t have memories, right? There’s a bunch of other quips I have but I doubt you want to hear them.”

     “I... I haven’t thought of it like that.” Rosa looked down a bit, “But they were chosen by...!”

     “A giant ball in the sky that just exploded recently. I’ll let you in on a secret, it’s hard to think that a silent God is anything good.”

     “But...”

     “You still haven’t answered my question.” Jeanie shifted her weight a little, “What are you doing out here then? Are you looking for another Guardian to raise out of the ground?”

     “I mean... what else can I do?” Rosa’s petals drooped a little as she looked down. “I can’t... I mean... I tried to work for some of the counsel but it’s just so...”

      _Lonely_. Rosa kept her eye on the Awoken woman. She was clearly a strong, capable woman, but she recognized something in her eyes. Somehow those yellow eyes seemed to have dimmed and dulled. She just seemed so... tired. There was something else there as well... a feeling of...

     “So even though I told you that it might be better to leave the dead alone, you’ll still go out there and find one?”

     “Well I... I would ask now I think. I can speak with them, sort of... I... I’ll be honest I’m not entirely sure how it works...”

     Jeanie’s frown deepened a little more, “What do you mean you’re not entirely sure how it works?”

     “I mean... I don’t know how a Guardian is chosen for us, or why memories are taken. I don’t understand fully even how I raise them from the ashes and give them life again.”

     Jeanie turned her head to face the horizon. The Traveler was not in view, but strangely enough she always knew which way to turn and scowl at it and the city. Perhaps it always had that natural pull, and since she was Awoken, partially made of light, that part always narrowed in on where the being was, along with the city was beneath it.

     “So she makes a bunch of Ghosts and tells them, ‘Go find a Guardian. I’m not gonna tell you how any of this works, just fucking do it.’ That’s real nice.”

     Rosa sounded flustered when she spoke next, “These Guardians are the only thing keeping humanity safe...!”

    “They keep one little corner of humanity safe.” Jeanie turned back towards Rosa with a glare, “There a lot more out here and out there that they could help, but decide to hide in their little shell. I’m not saying all, there’s a couple of good Hunters, but a good majority do. I’m not saying they should now since their city is probably in shambles, but there’s a lot more to Humanity than one tiny corner.”

     Rosa was stunned for a moment hearing that. She knew the Awoken people were not too fond of Guardians, but those were Reefborn, not Earthborn. Earthborn ones usually were ok with them and accepted them. What made this one so different? What made this one a wanderer, a bitter one at that, of this earth?

      “I... I don’t understand! The city and the vanguard and the consensus all want to...!”

      “Let me spell it out for you.” Jeanie leaned forward with a scowl, “They’re selfish pricks who don’t give a damn about anything outside of their city which includes but is not limited to the villages, the Reefborn Awoken, which I admit is my own asinine Queen’s fault, and they have not even tried once to expand outside of their walls and retake what is essentially theirs.”

     “Wait, you’re a Reefborn?” Rosa asked.

     “Yeah, long story.” She straightened up and seemed to be trying to find the right words, “I don’t really have much in common with their ‘keep all our secrets away from people even though it could benefit everyone’ thing anymore, not that I could tell you a whole lot. In hindsight, our Queen’s a bit of a bitch and I’m all the more happier without running back there. Doesn’t mean there’s not good people, it’s just...” Jeanie sighed, “I just wish they didn’t think themselves as better than everyone else. They’re not. They’re a bunch of dumbasses keeping secrets that are better off shared.”

     “Then what do you think of Guardians?” Rosa asked.

     “I might like them a whole lot more if they didn’t tie themselves to the Vanguard, just like the Awoken Reef people tie themselves to the Queen. No, they chain themselves. There’s a whole lot more out there, a whole lot more they can do I think. Like I said, not now since everything’s a damn wreck, but do you know how much better it would be if they would stop hiding in their tiny corners wailing about how awful these Fallen are and just work to start kicking them out of this fucking system. Not the friendly ones of course, just the assholes.”

     “F...friendly ones?”

     “You haven’t been out to the Reef have you? Doesn’t matter. Look this conversation’s been fun and all but I’ve got places to explore, tiny settlements to sort, shit like that.”

     Rosa shook her shell, “Hold up a moment! They do not wail about how awful the Fallen are, they fight them!”

     Jeanie picked up her spear, “Yeah huh. And there’s still plenty around aren’t there? They set their sights on the entire system instead of just one planet. Why the fuck would you focus on another planet when the one you’re currently on is overrun?”

     “It’s not that simple!”

     “Well it isn’t now because they decided ‘hey guys let’s take this tiny corner under the traveler, the BIGGEST target in this fucking system’ and build a giant ass city under it instead of maybe, I don’t know, a base there so they can protect it and then have a city elsewhere.”

     “Your point?”

     “My point is that right after the city was built they should’ve expanded borders and retaken more and more, training soldiers and civilians instead of walling themselves off in a corner. If they had started with earth and established towns guarded by Guardians and soldiers then maybe, juuuuust maybe they would be a better position than they are now.”

     Jeanie had been getting a little closer to Rosa while she was talking. Honestly Rosa couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Part of her rejected what Jeanie was saying, thinking that she didn’t understand at all the history of the city (which in truth she did not.) Another part of her dared to consider her words may have some merit to them.

     “You say that like it was possible!” Rosa shouted back, her shell trembling in anger.

     “It was once upon a time, wasn’t it? It was possible before they stretched their eyes to the moon. If they retook this planet first, you would be in a better spot, but now you’ve backed yourselves into a corner you can’t get out of.”

     Jeanie turned away and started to walk off, clearly done with the conversation. Rosa was left floating there, wanting to scream at this person, wanting to yell and holler as loud as loud as she could, but something stopped her. The small ghost became aware of a feeling leaving with the other. She felt it a little earlier, but had been so angry with the woman it was buried. But now that it was leaving, Rosa noticed it, and slowly began to realize just what this pull was, and why it was familiar...

     “You are...”

     The rule most Ghosts believed was that there was only one Guardian for them. Rosa wasn’t willing to accept that however as the days without her Guardian grew longer and more weary. She hated being helpless, hated being alone, so she went out on what would most likely be a fruitless search.

     But there... there she was: another potential Guardian for her. Perhaps the Traveler heard her prayers Perhaps she needed Rosa to keep this one safe. It was sort of unfortunate in a way then, considering the two got off on the wrong foot. She didn’t really want to believe that this bitter woman who saved her, argued with her, and now was walking away, was perhaps her Guardian, but there was no mistaking that feeling. Judging from what she said though, it was highly doubtful she would ever want to be a Guardian, and Rosa didn’t exactly want her to be one in that moment.

     But an emptiness was replacing that warm tug as Jeanie walked away, an emptiness that reminded her that she may never get her chance again.

     “Wait!” Rosa shouted and flew after the woman. By the time she caught up, Jeanie was on the old road again and was just about to climb into her ship, “Please wait...!”

      Jeanie let out a groan and rolled her eyes as she looked back as Rosa, “What now?”

     “Can I come with you?” Rosa asked as she flew up. Jeanie’s face went from irritated to downright confused. It was understandable of course, but a better result than Rosa was expecting.

     “W... why?”

     “Because I’m helpless and lonely. You seem capable and lonely.”

     Jeanie scowled at her, “What makes you think for one damn minute I’d let you come with me miss ‘The City Can do no Wrong?’”

     “Because you are a good person who won’t leave poor little me out here to fend herself, and I can help you carry more things so you don’t have to.”

     “You better know that I am not going anywhere near your city. This is not going to be like hanging out with a Guardian who patrols the walls.”

     “Believe me, I am aware. So please, will you let me come along Jeanie? Alone I cannot do much, but with you I may be able to do something to help people.”

     Jeanie was silent for a moment, looking Rosa up and down. The ghost felt like she was holding her breath as she was scanned over before the awoken heaved out a sigh.

     “Alright, you can come with.”

     Rosa seemed to light right up hearing the answer. At least this way she could be with this girl and not feel such an awful feeling. Perhaps she was not nearly as bad as she seemed and they just hit on a touchy subject. As Jeanie climbed into the cockpit, Rosa floated over and saw the mess the area was and started to pick up what little was there and put it into transmat.

     “Hey! What are you doing?” Jeanie shouted as the cockpit closed and she turned around to see her.

     “Putting your things where they won’t be in the way. I can carry your things, like your spear!” Rosa happily chirped. Jeanie gave her an odd look before holding her spear up to Rosa. She watched as it vanished from her hand and went into transmat.

     “Do you know how to use a gun?” Rosa then asked.

     “Yeah, just that my last one broke. It was a rusted piece of crap.”

     “This isn’t.” Jeanie then looked down to see Rosa had transmatted a gun into her lap. It was a handcanon, but it was clearly something special. It had a silver barrel that was engraved with feathers, and as Jeanie held the gun in her hand, it felt very comfortable and easy to use.

     “The Hawkmoon.” Rosa explained, “It was my Guardian’s favourite weapon before she lost her light and died. It’ll do much more good in your hands instead of sitting in my transmat.”

     Jeanie scanned the gun over before placing it in an empty hoop on her belt. It fit perfectly and she smiled just a little, “...thanks. It will.”

     With that, the two set off on a flight path to the Western side of what was once the United States of America. Rosa wasn’t really sure what she was in for, but as the Ophelia happily welcomed her, and she watched Jeanie doze off in the chair, she had a feeling she did make the right decision, even if it would be a long road.


End file.
